Bennett turned four years old on September 30th. To celebrate Bennett's fourth birthday, he chose a dinosaur theme and asked to have his party at the park ("where there is a slide, mama").
Designed for worship, our church is a bit dark inside so my pictures didn't turn out as well as they might have had the party been outside. But, it was kinda cool to feel like the party was being held in a dark "dinosaur cave." We made the best of it. :)
"Happy Dino Birthday" sign - up and ready to go!
Dinosaur themed yum-yums!
At first, we had planned to keep Bennett's party guest list small, preferably limited to 4 of his friends. However, it became clear in no time that too many people love and connect with Bennett to not invite them to his party. So, we invited a combination of his friends from school and church, their siblings and some of our friends' kids. :)
It was a lot of fun to have so many children. It may have been a bit like herding a bunch of cats at times but the preschoolers all seemed to really enjoy their time. And, most importantly, Bennett thoroughly enjoyed having soooo many friends there!
It took only all of about 30 seconds in to the game before I realized, "wait! Three and four year-olds don't like popping balloons!!!" My biggest clue? I looked up and saw about a third of the kids holding their ears out of fear of loud popping sounds. (Oh, and to make matters worse, did I mention the room we were in echoed alot?)
The good thing is it turned out that the 3 and 4 year-olds were too tiny to pop each other's balloons anyway. So, within a few minutes, myself and another mother were cutting the balloons off the kids ankles and just letting them play with them! Whew! No popped balloons and no tears! :)
Despite that every 3 and 4 year old at the party took a turn, none of the kids were able to break open the pinata. So, it was great when 9 year old Judah was finally able to to knock the candy out!
Sweet friends Myles and Parker. (Bennett's shirt was a gift from my talented friend Kristin who hand made his shirt to match the sweet little dinosaur on his invitation.)
After the games, it was cake time. Bennett's adorable birthday cake was given to him as a gift from our friend Paola, a very talented baker in town. Paola knows Bennett's birthdays are very special so it is her way of making sure that day is even more delightful.
Bennett just *loved* his dinosaur birthday cake and will most definitely talk about it all year long. In fact, he still loves talking about last year's birthday cake Paola made. :)
Make a wish!!
Of course, the children really loved getting a party favor bag. Each tiny bag was labeled with the child's "dinosaur name" (a version of their own name) and inside held a tiny plastic dinosaur, a dinosaur tattoo and a fun-sized bag of M&Ms. (I am so very thankful to Kristin for helping me at the last minute to get the party favor bags completed. I hadn't realized how difficult it is to do things at the last minute now that I have three children, one of which is an infant. :))
When it comes to raising our kiddos, Brian and I try very intentionally to minimize the need for "more stuff." It's hard to do in our own lives as well as in the lives of our children. But, in an effort to help our children to not become "entitled" or "spoiled", we decided to place "no gifts, please" on this year's invitation. It was a hard decision because typically we do appreciate our children getting gifts. Receiving birthday gifts is one of the most fun parts of having a birthday party. And we think receiving birthday gifts is a great way to train our children how to accept a gift graciously (and learn how to write thank you notes). But, with such a big guest list, we thought so many gifts would not be in line with our desire to cultivate appreciation and humbleness in our children. So, we spoke with Bennett beforehand and explained he would get plenty of presents from me, daddy and his grandparents but that his friend's gifts would be their coming to his party. He was ok with that, as long as he was going to get some presents (which he did).

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